Disgraced cyclist on remorse, his ban, Voldemort and Sepp Blatter
Thursday 11 June 2015 11:37, UK
Lance Armstrong has given multiple interviews since confessing in January 2013 to doping during his career, the latest of which was published in British media on Thursday.
The disgraced former cyclist has spoken with remorse at times and defiance at others, with his arguments always underpinned by his claim that his lifetime ban is harsh.
Here, we look back through some of Armstrong’s most memorable statements since his confession…
“It is my hope that revealing the truth will lead to a bright, dope-free future for the sport I love, and will allow all young riders emerging from small towns throughout the world in years to come to chase their dreams without having to face the lose-lose choices that so many of my friends, teammates and opponents faced. I hope that all riders who competed and doped can feel free to come forward and help the tonic of truth heal this great sport.”
“My punishment is a thousand times bigger than the crime I committed. They have chosen me as the symbol of those years, even if the top riders from then, plus the managers and the doctors from back then, were all in the same boat. They could have given me a ban that was five, six or even ten times bigger, but not a thousand times.”
“The bike? No more cycling. I have virtually given up riding in the last year. I only ride with friends. I have got a feeling of rejection for cycling at the moment.”
“I’m not going to be sorry for certain things. I’m going to be sorry for that person who was a believer, who was a fan, who supported me, who defended me, and ended up looking like a fool. I need to really be contrite and sorry about that. And I am. But these other stories [CIRC, the whistleblower case etc] are so high profile, so hot. It’s almost like a side business. That’s too much. I’m more worried about Mary-Jane in Ohio, and Doug in Pennsylvania, or Liam in Birmingham or wherever. Those are the people who need... listen, if you could walk the world and face to face apologise I would. And all the others who were directly impacted, whether it be [Filippo] Simeoni, or [Christophe] Bassons, or Emma [O’Reilly]. I mean, I tried to make it right with every one of those people. I can only do so much.”
“I have already told too many lies and I can't allow myself to tell more. But I repeat, in 2009 I stayed well away from doping. I think the urine and blood samples from that year are still available. If someone goes and controls them, they wouldn't find traces of doping in mine.”
"If I was racing in 2015, no, I wouldn't do it again because I don't think you have to. If you take me back to 1995, when doping was completely pervasive, I would probably do it again."
"I would want to change the man that did those things, maybe not the decision, but the way he acted. The way he treated people, the way he couldn't stop fighting. It was unacceptable, inexcusable."
“I’m that guy everybody wants to pretend never lived. But it happened, everything happened. We know what happened. Now it’s swung so far the other way. Who is that character in Harry Potter they can’t talk about? Voldemort? It’s like that on every level. If you watch the Tour [de France] on American TV, if you read about it, it’s as if you can’t mention him.”
“In a whistleblower case you have to show real tangible harm. The Postal Service commissioned studies in 2004 that showed it made $100m. There were years when it was making upwards of $20m a year in new business, before we had even started to race. So when you start to add all these things up, here is the question: Where are the damages? We like our case, but we still have to go fight it.”
“You know, it’s funny. When I showed up there, I had been travelling. I hadn’t shaved in, like, months. And I walked in and they had all this, they had L’Equipe there, and TV, and there was all these people. I was like, 'Woah, woah...what’s all this? I’m not doing that’. So we settled on just talking, face to face, with a couple of journalists, and it was fine. I appreciate his concern but that [suicide] is not a problem. It’s fine.”
“I absolutely don’t think it’s in a better place. [With the introduction of the] biological passport combined with [Floyd] Landis testing positive, that was that moment when this s*** is getting real. The big shift did not happen in 2012. You guys can decide if he [Brian Cookson, the International Cycling Union president] has done a good job, if he’s been tough on Astana [the Kazakh team who had five riders from their senior and development teams test positive in 2014], whether he’s stuck with his mission statement. Plenty of people would argue he’s laid down on a lot of things, whether it’s expedited TUEs [Therapeutic Use Exemptions], Astana.”
“Much bigger. Massive. I mean, nobody in the world thinks that [Blatter] is a really good guy. But for 15 years everybody in the world thought that Lance Armstrong was a really good guy. ‘That cancer guy, he’s our guy’. So it’s bigger even than Fifa.”
